0108 The Effect of Reward Motivation on Placekeeping Performance After Sleep Deprivation

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Sleep deprivation impairs some higher-order cognitive processes, but this impairment may reflect changes in motivation as well as changes in the cognitive capacity to perform the task, which has implications for intervention strategies. Here, we asked whether reward motivation could offset the effects of sleep deprivation on placekeeping, a higher-order cognitive process that is prevalent in performance of everyday tasks. To conduct this study under pandemic conditions, we developed a method for online data collection that promises to facilitate sleep-deprivation research more generally, by allowing for larger and more diverse samples to be collected at lower cost compared to in-person methods. Methods In the evening, participants joined a Zoom meeting and completed the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) and a placekeeping task (UNRAVEL). Afterwards, participants were randomly assigned to remain in the meeting and stay awake (Deprivation) or leave the meeting and sleep (Rested). Deprivation participants were monitored remotely overnight by two research assistants. Rested participants left the meeting at 00:00 and returned at 08:30. At 08:30, all participants completed the PVT and UNRAVEL again. Some participants had the opportunity to earn a monetary reward based on their morning UNRAVEL performance (Motivated) and some did not (Nonmotivated). We analyzed morning performance with a 2 (Sleep: Rested, Deprivation) x 2 (Reward: Motivated, Nonmotivated) design using evening performance as a covariate. Results Preliminary results from 206 participants show Deprivation participants had more placekeeping errors and lapses in the PVT than Rested participants. Motivated participants made fewer placekeeping errors after task interruption than Nonmotivated participants. The Sleep and Reward factors did not interact. Conclusion These results suggest that motivational interventions can mitigate some effects of sleep deprivation on complex task performance. However, reward motivation affected Rested and Deprivation performance similarly rather than compensating for any effects specific to sleep deprivation. This pattern does not rule out an effect of sleep deprivation on motivation, but does suggest that a different approach will be necessary to isolate this effect. Support (If Any) This research is funded by the Office of Naval Research (N00014-20-1-2739).